Joy Behar's coming to town! 

i am an avid View watcher, and Joy is my favorite personality on the show.  She'll be performing her comedy routine at the Nob Hill Masonic Center on June 16th. 

i am sure some of you out there are as crazy for The View as i am....i find myself fascinated every morning by the ladies and their Hot Topics.  Joy is my favorite because (esp before Rosie O'Donnell) she is the one who is the most blunt, the most truthful.  if she came to my family home for christmas, she would fit right in with my relatives, hilarious and cutting as she is. 


what is it about The View that is so addicting?  i have asked myself this question for many years now....for me i guess it's about what's going on below the surface on the show as much as it is what the women are gabbing about.  it seems like there is always tension behind the scenes and it's tantalizingly close to the surface at times.  i like to watch and see if it will peek out at the viewers and at what moment.  it's also refreshing to see women actually hashing out what is going on in the news, instead of watching the news and being blandly told so called facts. 

Michael Hurley played at the Cafe du Nord Wednesday night, so i busted on over there after my weekly Bravo reality tv date, and i made it just in time for his full set. 

Hurley is one of the last standing of the 60s folkies, and he's still playing out often.  i think in about the last 3 years i have seen him play maybe 5ish times?  oh, and though he is in his 60s he's still expertly writing ghostly, beautiful songs.   some of my favorites of his entire career have been on records from the last  15 years.  he's been recording since 1965!  despite the fact that most people associate folk music with serious, political topics, Hurley has always had his sense of humor intact and out front in his songs.

he's come back into fashion in these last 10ish years mainly because lately other artists have been giving him the shout-outs he's always deserved and have been covering his songs.  two of the more notable artists to champion Hurley lately have been Chan Marshall of Cat Power and Devendra Banhart.  (weirdly, Chan Marshall's Covers Album is practically a song for song version of Hurley's Armchair Boogie.)  a few years back i saw Devendra with Vetiver, Chris from Espers, Carrituck County members and Joanna Newsom covering one of my absolute favorite Hurley songs, "Be Kind to Me" at the Swedish American Hall, and they tore it up, made it the raucous and ramshackle-y number it's meant to be.

anyway, Hurley's a quiet, modest guy, but he is quite the renaissance man-- in addition to all his writing and touring, he creates the artwork for pretty much all his cds. 

helloooooooo everyone, i just read online that Miss Joanna Newsom will be opening for Miss Bjork on her upcoming tour for two whole dates:

05-15 Denver, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
05-19 Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre

now doesn't that seem like a fantastic match? 

i am so excited to hear Joanna's new ep that is coming out next tuesday on Drag City.  it's gonna be called Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band and will have one new song, "Colleen", recorded just after her tour ended in december at The Plant in Sausalito.  The Plant is a fabled recording studio where Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was laid down, along with sessions by just about anyone who's anyone, including Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Michael Bolton, etc etc.  all the greats.  anyway, i am waiting with most eager anticipation for this latest release, and will give a full report as soon as i hear it.  oh yeah it's also gonna have some live tracks from the Ys tour and including her crackerjack band of Miss Katie Hardin, Mr Neal Morgan, Mr Kevin Barker, Mr Ryan Francesconi, and Mr Dan Cantrell.   seeing the Ys songs performed live was one of the most moving experiences i have ever had at a show-- this band cooks!  and so do the songs.  hopefully everyone's heard joanna's Ys by now; if not, you are coo coo-- go check it out immediately!  Bjork's new album Volta comes out may 7.  all of this gives me so much to look forward to!

i'm not for global warming at all, but aren't you all as tired of being COLD right now as i am?  sf is freezing these past few days....and apparently compared to the northeast we've got it easy here.

anyway, today since it's so blustery all i have been listening to has been the Zombies' Odyssey and Oracle.  it's a fantastic record, makes me feel like it's fall for some reason (even though it's supposed to be spring right now).  the Zombies had so much promise as a 60s english rock band, but they broke up soon after this record was made in 1967, i think even by the time it was released.  i feel that this record is their penultimate statement though-- it's their only fully realized album.  maybe anything else they would have done would have seemed lesser after reaching such heights anyway.

the thing that is so great about Odyssey and Oracle is that every song is fantastic in its own way. it seems like all the songs on this record tell detailed stories and that's part of what sets the album apart and elevates the music. as with all favorite records, my favorite track changes often-- first, years ago, it was "A Rose For Emily", or maybe "Beechwood Park".  both songs are completely catchy and yet also melancholic.  i guess that is part of why i connect this record with an autumnal feeling-- it's that bittersweetness that comes over me about every september as the seasons change.  that said, there is optimism and hope on the record too, esp in "This Will Be Our Year" and "I Want Her She Wants Me", two more favorite cuts of mine.  right now and for the past year or so my favorite song on Odyssey and Oracle is the bizarro "Changes".  it's got overwhelmingly huge choruses with swirly harmonies and odd yet evocative lyrics describing a girl from the past who wears "strawberry clothes"-- it's all hung together strangely and yet it works and stands out.  clearly "Time of the Season" is the most famous track on the record, but i tend to forget it is even there, coming as it does at the very end of the whole eloquent thing.  it's like a little extra treat after you've heard and digested all these other wonderfully melodic nuggets.  yeah the Zombies were kinda obviously trying to be the Beatles (the record was made in 1967 after all, same as Sgt. Pepper)....but they did a great job of constructing a gorgeous pop album all their own.

so i don't know if you all are fans of lester bangs or not, but i am a huge fan.  lester bangs kinda sorta "invented" rock journalism as we know it today.  he was a passionate and talented fellow, who took his inspiration from the beats and from nyquil, among other things.  in his pieces he rambles from one brilliant point to another, all the while insulting everyone possible and tearing down your expectations.  he's also incredibly tender about the things that have really moved him.



my favorite piece he ever wrote is, not coincidently, about one of my favorite records:  Astral Weeks by van morrison.  you can check out  the entire piece he wrote here.  (and you should.)



lester's writing style can't be beat in my book.  it's so upsetting that he died so young, pretty much burned himself out, cause it would be so fantastic to have him here today, railing against the dull- as- tombs stuff that passes for music writing these days.  it would be so interesting to hear his take on the world we have now, a world in which the internet (here we are) means that anything, any bit of information or connection we want we can have at our fingertips, instead of that long, weary and ultimately rewarding search we used to have.  i think if he was here lester would still see and point out the beauty in that brand of now- old-fashioned journey.